As a photographer it's incredibly tough to stay on top of the social side of the photography world.
In this day and age, a photographer must also be an editor, a PR person, a writer, a graphic designer, a web editor, a copywriter, a production manager, a tech geek, gear nerd and a magician with time. Let's be honest, not everyone is cut out to handle that work load...and not everyone has those types of skills.
As a young person, I love technology, and I love to use the internet to my advantage, but I've honestly come to dislike the amount that social networks have desensitized the vast group of people using the internet.
Today we have email blasts three to four times-a-day, posts about cats, dogs, babies, posts with too much information (everything down to bladder movements), sites that waste your time, ads, ads and more ads, virus sites and probably more cats. In my oppinion the internet wasn't invented to be used to in this manner. It was meant to transfer information and to convey thoughts and dialogue.
Dialogue is the main reason why I've enjoyed the internet...forever. To me dialogue means conveying thought or conversation, something that a good photo will do as well. (See where I'm going with this)
Since I first logged on the web with a 56k modem on a packard bell computer (with less computing power than my current cell phone), I've always found it amazing that I could both start a conversation with just about anyone, from friends, strangers, to well "stranger danger" strangers. The internet in it's vast quantity always had an answer had the most relevant photo, had the games score, it always gave you history, opinion and conversation.
For me, I'm simply the type of guy who hates the idea of the kind of internet where everyone is always poking you and bragging about what they've done and where they've been. However for a photographer I understand the need to show a portfolio of work and to show where you are artistically at the moment. It's a very fine line that I find few people walk. Frequently, bloggers in the photo world come off to me as if they think they're better than everyone else. Few start conversation, but they simply spew photos.
Then there's the other side of the die where the other folks just steal photos and fail to generate any content whatsoever. There's no dialogue and no creativity.
As with every site I've managed, this journal will heir on the side of showing updates on my major work, as well as some of the fun and awesome things that I encounter in my life (art, autos, photography, charity) as well as the technical side of things to help those budding photographers who look to sites like mine for both inspiration and technical know-how.
I hope that everyone finds this new journal helpful and informative, but I truly hope those with questions feel welcome to ask them, as this is the area of my site that I hope to gain more interaction with my viewers. I'll be migrating over some posts from my old site as I hammer out the fine details of this new site, but expect new posts will be coming as I continue to shoot. Enjoy the site and thanks for reading in advance.
